


From Start to Finish

by allfandomnolife



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:28:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22671031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allfandomnolife/pseuds/allfandomnolife
Summary: from first date to wedding day
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Kudos: 36





	From Start to Finish

‘i can’t meet you guys tomorrow, sorry.’ eddie makes a beeline for the exit. he doesn’t like lying to his friends but it is so much easier than explaining that he was busy going on a date tomorrow. one with richie, none the less.

richie tries to keep his face impassive. he briefly looks at everybody else, unsure if they are yet to suspect anything. if they do, he is very much so unaware of it.

‘what? summer has just started.’ beverly is a little disgruntled. it is the first time they would all have some time to spend with each other. no school, no homework, and the sun sets so much later now. ‘are you busy for the whole day?’

eddie shrugs. he doesn’t like lying to his friends so he opts to simply omit certain, yet arguably important, details about tomorrow. ‘yeah, i’m busy. sorry.’ he throws a sheepish grin and hopes someone will take pity on him and drop the subject. otherwise, he’ll make a run for it.

*

eddie tries his hardest to sneak out of his house without the losers or his mum seeing him. he puts his head down and makes his way down the road where richie is waiting for him. 

‘hey, did any of them see you?’ richie looks around in a similar way to how they all do when henry may be around. eddie shakes his head and gets onto his bike. 

the boys make their way to the forest and inevitably ride into stan. ‘where are you guys off to?’ eddie’s eyes go wide, he hears stan’s voice before he feels the tap on his shoulder. 

‘we’re just um…meeting to fight…with…each other?’ richie’s eyebrows shoot up like a deer in headlights. his eyes dart around at eddie for help to no avail. it wasn’t his best lie but they just had to go with it. ‘he’s upset i’m off to fuck his mum.’ eddie punches richie to add some sort of realism to the lie. 

unsurprisingly, stan did not buy it. he scrunched his eyebrows a little and swayed against his bike. ‘oh…right. is that why you couldn’t meet with us today?’ eddie nods his head quickly. stan seems even more dissatisfied with the response.

‘where are you going?’ eddie tries his best to deflect the attention away from him and richie. luckily, stan seems to want to show them a little mercy as he sighs before responding.

‘i was going to meet with everybody but then ben got sick so i’m just gonna go home.’ stan cannot shake off his suspicion about why two of his friends were just in the woods by themselves. richie and eddie look around in fear that everybody else was there. ‘everybody’s gone. i saw a piping-plover so everyone just left me to bird-watch.’ the couple are itching to get away from the situation. the longer that they were there, the longer they had to slip up. ‘anyway…cool bye?’

eddie and richie jump at their chance to escape. they clamber onto their bikes and scream bye. stan follows. he leaves a fair amount of distance between them, curious to know what they were actually up to. he cringes when his bike goes over a little scrap of metal. he hopes that it isn’t too loud to arouse suspicion.

*

they cycle to creek and talk about what they were going to do. ‘it’s hot and bright out. the perfect type of day to play a prank on these assholes. what do you think?’ richie has a devious grin on his face. they’re sat on the river bank, fingers almost touching. eddie couldn’t mind just spending the day there and just talking to richie. in fact, he probably would enjoy that even more. 

‘you want to spend our first date pranking the others?’ eddie’s fingers rub against the ground. it kicks up a little dust and he stares at richie who looks a little uneasy. his face lights up and laughs. ‘we should take silver and fix her up a little.’

‘you do realise that the idea is to prank them, right?’ richie shakes eddie a little and punches his arm. ‘don’t you understand the concept of a prank?’ he taps the side of his forehead and screams ‘duhhh’ until he gets an eye-roll in response.

‘nobody has every actually said that pranks have to be mean. we can prank everyone else properly but it would be cruel to do that to bill.’ richie contemplates the idea before nodding in agreement. ‘can we get a bike chain and some oil and try to fix her up before he realises. i think it would be pretty nice for her to work a little better. bill would like that.’

what the boys did not know was that stan was still following them and taking pictures. pictures that would definitely be developed and shown to the rest of the losers as soon as humanly possible. stan also definitely heard what is going on but he isn’t objecting to making bill just a little happier. after the year he had, he deserved to be happy. 

*

after spending hours riding around looking derry for a decent enough bike chain, they rush to bill’s. eddie spent his week’s allowance on the items but it didn’t bother him. he’s good at saving money and sometimes a nice gesture is just that. nice. 

sadly, in their excitement, the boys forgot that they were meant to be sneaky. so, when eddie points at silver, richie rushes to grab the old, beaten up bike which leads to a loud crash as the bike falls to the floor and bill comes rushing out. 

‘what…are you guys doing?’ bill runs down towards them and richie drops silver to the ground. eddie shows bill the bike chain and oil.

‘we just thought it would be nice to help you fix up silver.’ the boys all crouch down towards the bike. ‘richie, can you take off the old chain? be careful of the oil.’

‘why do i have to get messy? you just boss me around.’ nonetheless, he still removes the chain and replaces it. ‘pass the oil, will you?’ it is handed over and their hands brush every so gently. both boys try to pretend that it didn’t happen and richie focuses all of his attention on the bike. they all try to ignore the elephant in the room. 

‘sooo…are we going to talk about why you two are together or not?’ the boys look between each other awkwardly and somewhat expectantly. eddie goes bright red and richie kicks a rock beneath him. nobody makes eye-contact.

the pregnant pause continues. ‘well…we just wanted to hang out together? you know…like two bros…just…chilling…? as…bros?’ eddie wanted to die. richie had never said anything so terrible. could he not lie? why was he so terrible at it? this was almost as bad as when he tried to lie to stan. bill definitely did not believe richie.

‘come on. i know the pair of you are going out.’ bill looks richie dead in the eye. a smile tweaked at his lips. ‘it’s so obvious. now. explain.’ how could the most oblivious boy in the entirety of derry clock on to them dating? eddie was certainly going to have a word with richie about lying soon.

‘fuck you. we fix your bike and this is how you repay us?’ richie stands up exasperated. ‘before we go off to prank someone else, test it out.’richie pushes the bike towards bill a little too excitedly. as annoyed as he is, eddie was right, bill is happy and everyone wants to see if it rides any smoother.

bill mounts silver and starts to pedal. the wheels turn almost instantly and there is no horrible sound as he moves which is a great improvement to previously. eddie picks up the old chain to take to the dumpster but bill shakes his head and takes it off of him saying something along the lines that he will take care of it.

‘hey, wait. i won’t say anything as long as you take stan’s bird book for a day.’ bill can’t stop himself from laughing. it was revenge for the time he threw his ice-cream into the creek. ‘also, thank-you.’ 

eddie stands up and shakes bill’s outstretched hand. richie shakes his head in laughter and they say good-bye. the boys cycle off to mess with stan. 

*

stan rushes home once he hears what the boys were up to and places his bird book on the porch. it is the easiest way for everyone to pretend that they aren’t all aware of the date or the secret looks between the pair of them. mike was the first to realise that the pair would sneak off. the suspicion grew from there.

he hears their bikes and eddie shush richie. stan is crouched behind his bedroom window, peeking above to see. camera still in tow and he just spies on them a little.

‘hey, look. it’s right here.’ richie picks up the book and waves it at eddie. ‘mission accomplished!’ eddie is quick to shush richie and pulls his arm down. this elicits a small whine from the taller boy but he still obliges.

‘where should we go now? we can’t prank everyone today. it would be too obvious.’ he takes the book off of richie and places it in his bag. neither of them want to ruin it, they just want to hide it from stan for a little while. it’s a harmless prank, after all. ’and we need time to return this to stan before it gets dark.’

‘don’t you think this was just a little too easy? stan never goes anywhere without his book.’ in a moment of bravery, eddie grabs richie’s hand and guides him towards his bike. the touch is nothing long but more that enough to get eddie’s heart racing. 

‘maybe he went inside so we should get out of here.’ they mount their bikes and look behind at stan’s house once more. it’s starting to cool just a little but eddie is sweating more now than he was when the sun was at its hottest.

‘should we just go back for a little bit?’ eddie nods. ‘bet i’ll get there before you.’ they race off down the dusty path. their bikes dip and dive with the unpaved road as they bask in the wind.

‘that’s because i’m busy fucking your mum.’

‘fun fact, you’re on a date with me and you’ve talking about fucking my mum twice today.’ eddie jokingly glares at richie. ‘stop it.’

stan watches the direction they go off into and hears richie’s unmistakeable laugh. he knows there is no other place they would go to other than the creek. waiting for a few minutes, he decides that he is done following them for the day. smiling to himself, he’s pleased to know that his friends are enjoying their date.

*

once the boys get back to the creek, they’re tired and sweaty. rushing around the town ‘pranking’ their friends had really knackered richie out. eddie ruffles the curly hair of his partner? friend? he doesn’t know what they are but he isn’t too upset about it.

‘you look like you’re about to pass out.’ eddie pulls richie to him but the taller boy pulls back, mumbling something about it being too hot to be touched. ‘come on, let’s get in the water. it’ll cool you down.’ 

richie is reluctant to get up and his will only bends when eddie is literally dragging his arm. they both strip down to their underwear and get into the warm water. not even that is cool but it’s better than nothing.

even at the end of the day the sun is still glaring down at them. neither boy is mad. the longer its light, the longer their date is and neither of them want it to end. whilst it was richie’s first date with a guy, it was eddie’s first. however, it is so new to them both that they don’t know what to do. 

they splash in the water and just laugh. it’s lighthearted and fun until the mood shifts. richie dunks eddie’s head in the water and cups his face as he resurfaces. ‘what are you doing?’ richie shushes the smaller boy and experimentally closes the gap between them. 

eddie pulls his hands to richie’s hair. the movement is anything but smooth. it is awkward and uncomfortable but it feels right. his wet hands dampen richie’s soft, fluffy hair and despite the heat, the warmth of his head feels right against his palms. 

the stare at each other, neither wanting or knowing how to initiate. richie rests his other arm on eddie’s hip which the other male replicates. who knew that first kisses are so hard?

much to richie’s surprise, eddie kisses him. it’s quick and sweet. barely even a second but it feels better than any of the other kisses richie had ever had. it feels right to kiss eddie. his best friend. maybe they were made for each other. 

*

they leave derry together. after fighting it, derry was a place of nightmares and failure. mike reminds them of what happened and everybody stays in touch. 

the losers are all invited to their house-warming. hugs are shared and wine is drunk. they all celebrate when richie finally gets down on one knee. ben is not very happy that he loses a bet ($50, nonetheless) to beverly who insisted that they would get engaged before stan’s wedding. 

*

eddie’s curled up into richie. the pair of them are just a little worried about what stan has in store for his best-man speech. in fact, this is about as worried as they have been since learning their first dance routine. to say that eddie has two left feet is an understatement.

with a wicked grin on his face, stan switches on the screen. ‘you see. as the best-man, it is my duty to embarrass both richie and eddie on the happiest day of their lives.’ he flashes his eyebrows at his newly-wed friends. stan pushes a button and the screen fills with pictures of them as children. some are of them two together and others with their group of friends. a lot are scans of polaroids and developed pictures. the years have worn them down and the colours are a little faded but in all of them they look happy.

‘if you ask them, they will tell you that we, as a group of friends, only found out that they were dating after a year. they are incorrect.’ stan pushes the button again and up pops a picture that he took of their first date.

‘what?!’ eddie’s face grows red. it matches the picture on the screen where he and richie got caught out by bill. richie points out eddie’s red face to him which elicits a light punch to his forearm.’where did you get these pictures? i didn’t even know they existed’

‘well’, stan scratches his head. ‘we may have followed you guys…and by we, i mean me.’ luckily, everybody laughs. ‘you were acting so suspicious and i was worried. but still. everybody knew you guys were dating.’ mike, beverly and ben all nod their heads furiously and laugh. they were well and truly exposed.

richie turns to eddie and pulls the smaller man closer to him. ‘well, i think we were really sneaky.’ eddie pecks his wine-stained lips before settling into his arms. 

‘me too. i love you.’

*


End file.
